When I was a young boy in the 1950s, probably half of the children I knew collected stamps (the stamp experts tell me it was actually more than that). Stamp collecting was one of the most significant hobbies in the world and we all grew up expecting our stamps to increase in value over time. Maybe so many people collected stamps because it was so affordable in those days. A regular U.S. postage stamp cost three cents. If you wanted to buy all the stamps issued by the government each […]

Some of you may have seen this exercise before (it’s in my book Super Trader), but our experiences change over time, so exercises like this are worth repeating. Think about some problem you have with your trading. It could be almost any problem. Perhaps you have trouble taking profits too soon. You might get angry when a trade gets away from you. Perhaps you frequently second-guess yourself. Whatever your problem is, write it down. You can apply this exercise to almost anything that you think might be a problem. Once

One of the most critical exercises in my Peak Performance Home Study Course is the value elicitation exercise in the third volume. Tony Robbins does a very expensive workshop in Fiji on this process, but the complete instructions for doing it by yourself are in the Peak Performance Home Study Course. However, I’ve noticed that exercise is primarily for people who move toward their goals. People who move toward their goals, once they spend a few days doing the value elicitation exercise will find that they have a complete picture

The best traders and investors in the world become that way because they have rich internal maps that allow them to see and capture a huge edge in the market. Let me give you three examples of famous traders/investors who captured such an edge. First, Ed Seykota is probably one of the best of the traders in the original Market Wizards book. When I was visiting Ed about 20 years ago, his then wife told me that his trading dominated/controlled two different brokerage companies. But how did Ed get into

You have probably heard about three AI machines that are readily available. Google has its Google Home. Amazon has Echo. And Apple has Siri. I own all three just so I can watch how they evolve. I’m told that in Silicon Valley now, almost all new startups seem to involve some form of AI. AI is projected to be a major growth area for the economy in the coming years. In fact, if you want a fairly safe portfolio during this bull quiet market, you might simply consider owning Apple,

In addition to being president of the Van Tharp Institute, I consider myself to be a trading coach, and an NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) modeler. However, I’m different from most NLP modelers. Most of them are NLP trainers and the teach NLP workshops. Plus, they do lots of different small-scale modeling projects. In contrast, I teach trading related workshops and I’ve spent the last 30 plus years modeling one thing, success in trading/investing. Richard Bandler, one of the co-founders of NLP, first conducted modeling by mimicking the micro strategies of certain

This topic might press your buttons. But finding your hot spots helps you discover how you sabotage yourself. I read a wonderful little book by Jerry Stalking entitled, Laughing With God.1 In that book, the following dilemma is brought up, and here I’m going to paraphrase the conversation pertinent to trading/investing. God: Do you want to win without losing? Trader: Of course. God: If you win, you must lose as well. But you lied to me. You said that you’d like to just win. If that were the case, you’d